Archive for November, 2011

Well, this is one of those unexpected, crazy stories about consumer electronics gone wild again. An iPhone 4 began spontaneously smoking and emitting a red glow while aboard an Australian airplane, specifically, the Regional Express flight ZL319, flying to its destination of Sydney. According to the airline Qantas, a passenger’s iPhone began “emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow” shortly after the flight landed, but at some point afterwards the glow was "extinguished successfully", and no one onboard was hurt or inujured.

Google has finally made its Google Catalogs service available today on its tablets running the Android operating system, months after arriving on, well, Apple's iPad back in August. There are store catalogs from more than 125 brands, including Nordstrom, Williams-Sonoma, Nike and Sephora. The app itself, which is entirely free, is downloadable from the Android Market, and also offers more than 400 digital catalog issues that can be browsed by various categories. Could have come a bit earlier to Android tablets from Google themselves, instead of to the iPad first, but, oh well, it's at least here.

Apple has released the first developer beta for iOS 5.1, making it the first real update since iOS 5 was released last month. A minor update, 5.0.1, was released earlier this month with the goal of addressing user's poor battery performance. There is much speculation that 5.1 will include updates to Siri, the iPhone 4S voice assistant, that will let users give instructions like turning on off settings like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

Samsung seems to be pumping out new devices like there's no tomorrow, but here's something new to set a precedent: SM'ART Panels specifically designed for displaying fine art. In development for five years, the high resolution LCD panels surpass standard television sets in an attempt to be a truly digital canvas. The panels are designed to display the fine details that an artist wishes to come through, such as texture and the exact color envisioned.

HDCP, Intel's heavily used copy protection system for audio and video, has been cracked by a professor in Germany, not in an attempt to get a bootleg of the latest Transformers on Blu-ray, but to point out the flaws in the encryption. HDCP is the protection is used in almost every HDMI or DVI compatible TV or computer monitor. With a tool that cost approximately 200 Euros ($266), Prof. Dr. Ing. Tim Güneysu was able to get around the security.

Following rumors this morning that Best Buy was dropping RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, the retailer has responded to CNET, confirming that this was not the case. The speculation began after there were several reports that Best Buy had canceled customer orders for the PlayBook and then completely yanked the listing from its online store.

This week we're seeing the fabulously powerful and relatively inexpensive OCZ Octane 1TB 2.5-inch SSD hit the review block, and what we're seeing here is that the manufacturers have backed up their claims in more ways than one. Price per gigabyte on this device is lower than the competition while the strength its displaying in this first round of hands-on looks is showing it to be more than a contender in the benchmark department. Could this be your next solid state drive, dare we ask?

Market research firm VisionMobile has released a report, revealing that the worldwide mobile phone market is still dominated by feature phones. Despite all the craze around the latest iPhone or Android device and the spike in smartphone shipments, their global penetration has only reached 27 percent.

There's a few claims being written up today on the Galaxy Nexus as it'll be dropping on Verizon, each of them pointing in the direction of a pre-order date starting tomorrow, the 29th of November, 2011. What we're hearing is that there's this fellow by the name of Mike Peak who has been the only person in the world who's been able to contact Verizon and get a solid date out of them as far as when the magical Ice Cream Sandwich device will be available for purchase complete with LTE connectivity. The date is tomorrow, says the supposed Verizon customer assistant on the other end of the phone, and the event is a start for pre-release orders.

Verbatim launched a new tablet peripheral today called the Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Wireless Mobile Keyboard. The keyboard is about as thin as a No. 2 pencil and is compatible with your iPad, iPad 2, iPhone, or other Bluetooth-enabled device with HID keyboard support. This means that it would also work with Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Motorola Xoom.